TL;DR
- A Redditor has called out Samsung for misleading advertising and “fake” moon photos using its 100x spatial zoom feature.
- The user alleges that the Samsung phones add extra textures and details to the pictures of the moon clicked with the flagship Galaxy phones.
Over the weekend, a Reddit thread made waves for pushing Samsung into a tight spot. It alleges that the company is misleading customers with “fake” moon photos captured with its 100x space zoom feature.
Samsung introduced Space Zoom with the Galaxy S20 Ultra. Since then, the company has been promoting it as a great tool for capturing the moon. Samsung has always maintained that it uses AI to enhance those 100x digital zoom photos. A SamMobile The 2021 report called the feature a gimmick, explaining how Samsung overlays textures obtained from much higher resolution images of the moon onto photos you take using the spatial zoom feature.
The latest Reddit thread also claims the same. Based on tests conducted by the Reddit user, it appears that Samsung is using AI to add textures like craters and other details to photos of the moon that would otherwise have been blurry. It is not additional processing to enhance the details of the image you originally clicked. This is a trained neural network that has been fed countless images of the moon to be able to add additional information to the moon photos you take with your Samsung phone.
Another case of false advertising?
The post calls out Samsung for misleading marketing. The Redditor links to one MSPower article quoting the company as saying that the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s 100x zoom feature captures multiple frames in seconds and uses AI to fine-tune details. Contrary to the latest statements and the old ones SamMobile article, this makes it appear that the spatial zoom feature enhances the details already captured by the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s camera.
However, Samsung goes on to explain the following facts about Space Zoom in the MSPower post:
The AI will start by detecting the scene/image at the preview stage by testing it against an AI model trained on hundreds of thousands of images. Once the camera detects and identifies the image as a particular scene, for example, the Moon, it offers a detail enhancement function by reducing blur and noise. Usually, the actual photo will be of higher quality than the camera preview. This is due to additional AI-based multi-image processing that occurs as the photo is captured.
So while Samsung has been pretty clear about using AI deep learning to deliver high-quality moon shots, Redditors are upset with the company for not being open to adding textures and details where there is not. Huawei was also previously accused of not fully disclosing how its Moon Mode actually works. Tests conducted by a user alleged that the Huawei P30 was actually placing pre-existing images of the moon in its moon shots.
Samsung has not responded to the latest allegations.